Stay With Me
by Dreigiau
Summary: Ilookgoodinsuits's Prompt: How about a timelord Ianto (Janto)? I still refuse his death, so… :)
1. Chapter 1

**AN: **I rather enjoyed writing up this prompt, and am currently open to suggestions for other Timelord!Ianto pieces, showing later parts of the relationship for these guys. If you have anything you'd like to see, either leave a comment or message me over on Tumblr. :)

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Ianto Jones is dying. There is a virus in the air, and the young man has minutes left at best. Jack is dimly aware that he is dying as well, but the effect on him is slower, and his own death is hardly an event that worries him. The important thing is that the 456 have followed through on their threat. Ianto Jones, his brilliant, brave Ianto, is dying.

Ianto's legs give out, his body unable to support itself, and Jack lowers them both carefully to the floor. He pulls the younger man into his arms, cradling him carefully. The position is a reflection of the way Ianto has so often held the immortal man when he dies. Jack pushes the thought away. He will never wake up in Ianto's arms again. Never again hear the gently soothing Welsh accent as he claws his way back into life.

"Stay with me, Ianto. Stay with me." Jack pleads, barely aware of the words coming out of his mouth. He is begging, something he so rarely does. But Ianto needs to stay, needs to hold on until Jack can work out some way to fix it. There has to be a way, there is always a way.

"It was good, yeah?" Ianto's voice is weak, and that is wrong. So wrong. Because Ianto is not weak, he is strong. So much stronger than Jack had ever expected when he hired the Welshman. Strong enough to cope with loss, betrayal, the most depraved types of humans and death. He should never sound weak.

"Yeah." Jack can only agree, shifting so that he can hold Ianto closer.

"Don't forget me." Jack ignores the tears the sting the back of his eyes at the words, instead leaning down for a gentle kiss.

"Never could." It's a promise and a reassurance, and Jack knows that it's true. There have been a lot of people in his life, but he will always remember the important ones.

"A thousand years," Ianto's breath catches and Jack feels himself flinch. Another few minutes, he needs just another few minutes. "You won't remember me."

"I will, promise." Jack leans in for another kiss. Sometimes he can help, he can get hold of a little piece of whatever makes him immortal and share it, sometimes he can save someone. He's done it before, when Ianto was thrown across the Hub by Lisa. It won't work this time. The virus is still in the air and Jack is also dying. Nothing that he can do will help.

"I love you." Ianto's face is twisted in discomfort, but he wants his last words to matter. So he lets them be an admission that he has never made before. Jack shakes his head.

"Don't." He's not sure if he's asking the other man not to love him, or not to talk like this is it, or something else.

"There's," Ianto starts, pausing to reach into a pocket. It's clearly an effort, and Jack reaches to help him.

"It's okay, relax." He pushes his hand past Ianto's, curling his hand around the item in the pocket and pulling it out. "This?" Ianto nods, his head lolling back against Jack's arm and chest.

"Keep it." Jack nods, gripping the small object. Apparently content, Ianto goes limp, exhaling softly and not inhaling again. Jack flicks the pocket watch in his hand open absently, leaning forward for a final kiss. Ianto is beyond talking to, and Jack can feel himself slipping towards the same familiar darkness. He falls sideways, fingers still wrapped loosely around the open pocket watch. From the corner of his eye he catches sight of a strand of gold light. He writes it off as a near-death hallucination and lets himself let go of life.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack wakes up with a soft intake of breath. The virus means that he avoids the jerking and pain which follows a violent death, and he is glad of it. There are arms wrapped tightly around his chest, and he clings to them as he settles back into life. For the first few seconds he assumes that it is Ianto holding him, before he remembers that it can't be. He closes his eyes for a moment, ignoring the sting behind them and leans back into the hold. It feels like Ianto, and for a few precious seconds he can pretend.

"Good to have you back, Sir." The voice which breaks the silence causes Jack to start. He tears himself out of the hold and turns to face the speaker. Ianto is kneeling behind him, a soft smile on his face as he watches Jack struggle for words.

"How?" The immortal man eventually manages to demand. He is a man who cannot stay dead, and it crosses his mind that perhaps impossible things should not surprise him as much as they do. But he had felt Ianto go limp in his arms, had watched the young man die. Jack always comes back, other people are not supposed to.

"The pocket watch," Ianto explains, holding the small object out between them. "When you opened it, it reverted my biology and my memories. I'm still not sure of all the details, they've been in there a long time."

"But what are you?" Ianto flinches back slightly at the tone of Jack's voice. Despite the progress that Torchwood has made in dealing with what they don't understand, he knows that they all see anything unknown as a potential threat. Ianto knows that nothing about the situation seems to make sense, but the accusation in Jack's voice is almost as hurtful as a physical attack.

"Gallifreyan." It is the only thing about himself that Ianto knows for sure without spending more time thinking on the new information that his head now holds.

"The Doctor's from Gallifrey," Jack mutters, pushing himself to his feet and reaching down to help Ianto up. "How did you end up here, with the… whatever was going on with the watch?"

"I was a kid, when the Time War started. My parents were Time Lords, got me to Earth and left me with a family where I'd be safe." Ianto shrugs. He will have to cope with his family not being his actual family later. "They were going to come back once it was safe, I suppose that never happened. But the watches don't just rewrite memories, they rewrite biology. So I was human, I've been human since I was about five. I barely have any memories of before that, I'm not sure if they're not back yet, or if I was just too young."

"You should have regenerated," Jack insists, still either unable or unwilling to accept what Ianto is telling him.

"I don't know, Jack. I was a kid, I don't know how any of this works, not really." Their hands are still linked from where Jack had pulled him up, and he tugs the immortal man a little closer. "We can work out the details later, I promise. But you've been out for over an hour, and we've still got the 456 to deal with."

"Right, kids to save." Jack nods, pausing a moment before letting go of Ianto's hands and wrapping him in a tight hug. He doesn't say anything further on the matter, but Ianto smiles and hugs him back. For the time being they have a job to focus on. Later they can start to deal with what it means, individually and together. Later, they can cope with the mixture of confusion and relief.

They stand in silence in the room full of bodies for a few long seconds before Jack releases the embrace and turns on his heel, heading for the door with Ianto following close behind.


	3. Chapter 3

They do not have the chance to talk further until some time after the 456 have been dealt with. The return to Cardiff is made with Gwen and Rhys, and neither Jack nor Ianto is in the mood for important discussions.

When they arrive back in the Welsh capital Ianto goes to visit the woman who isn't actually his sister and the children who aren't actually his niece and nephew. Except they are, and he is not sure if he should ever mention otherwise. Mica and David both let him hug them close for a few long minutes, neither commenting on how uncool it is. He stays for dinner and revels in the fact that none of them know how much has changed.

Later that night he finds Jack on a rooftop. The immortal man is standing just back from the edge, his coat snapping in the wind. Ianto approaches slowly, wrapping his arms around Jack's waist and resting his chin on the taller man's shoulder.

"They've started to cover over The Hub," Jack mutters, voice nearly lost in the wind. Ianto tightens his hold slightly. He knows that The Hub had been Jack's home for decades, possibly centuries. Before the events of the past week, Ianto had been practically living there too.

"It's freezing up here. Come back to my flat. We'll talk," Ianto suggests. Jack nods shortly, letting Ianto take his hand and lead him away from the roof edge and towards the door into the building.

The flat is quiet as Ianto potters about the kitchen. The coffee machine is running, dispensing shots of espresso into large mugs. He pulls a bottle of Caramel syrup out of the cupboard and adds a large glug to both drinks. They could both do with the comforting sweet flavour alongside their coffee. Jack is slumped across the sofa in the small living room, brooding. It is not ideal, but Ianto is glad that Jack is doing so somewhere where he can keep an eye on him, rather than still on the roof.

Once the coffee is done he passes one mug to Jack, wrapping his hands around his own as he settles into the sofa beside the other man.

"What did you tell them? Your family?" Jack asks, once the coffee has cooled a little and they have both half finished their drinks. Ianto shrugs.

"Nothing yet. What should I tell them, do you think?" Ianto sets his mug aside, turning to face Jack and pulling his legs up onto the sofa as he does so.

"I don't think you should tell them anything. Dangerous aliens from space are one thing, living among us as part of our families is quite another." Jack drains the remainder of his coffee and turns to face Ianto fully.

"What about you? Does... does it bother you?" Ianto knows that the answer should, by all rights, be no. Jack has joked enough times about his relationships with various aliens, and told Ianto enough about the relationships between humans and aliens in the future that he comes from. But the situation has changed, and they have always struggled with major change.

"I don't know," Jack answers honestly. "You're different. But you still look like you, still act like you."

"I am still me. There's not enough of a previous me to revert back to. All my memories, all my growing up has still been done here on Earth." Ianto leans against the back of the sofa, keeping his eyes on Jack. "I'm not going to wake up tomorrow with no idea who you are, or be a completely different person."

"I thought I'd lost you, for good." Ianto nods. Jack does not have to finish the thought. Ianto knows well the fear of the other man being gone forever, or coming back somehow changed. The Jack who had returned from his travels with the Doctor was not the same man who had left months previously.

"You'll have to try a little harder than that, Sir," Ianto tells him, managing a smile as Jack reaches out. Their hands meet on the back of the sofa, resting together as they continue to talk.

"I'll be leaving. The Hub's gone, there's no Torchwood to stay for. Come with me?" Jack asks.

"Anywhere," Ianto replies, lacing his fingers through Jack's and squeezing gently.

"I might end up off-world. Earth's only so big, and I can really travel when I set my mind to wandering," Jack warns. Ianto slides himself across the sofa, leaning into Jack's personal space.

"Jack, I said anywhere," he says. He presses his lips to Jack's, pressing forwards until the immortal man takes the hint and leans back against the armrest with Ianto lying on top of him. They take a moment to arrange themselves more comfortably, Jack shifting his legs so that he can stretch out across the length of the sofa. "I meant it." Ianto does not give Jack time to reply before kissing him again.


End file.
